Intl. Desalination Assn. Presents Lifetime Achievement Award

The Intl. Desalination Assn. (IDA) presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Jim Birkett in recognition of his extensive contributions in the fields of desalination and water reuse. The award was conferred at the IDA World Congress 2013 in Tianjin, China.

Widely considered one of the desalination industry’s most respected professionals, Birkett has more than four decades of experience in the study of desalination, advanced water treatment, and membrane separation industries and technologies. He was the first elected president of IDA. He later served as treasurer and was a director for many years. From 2009-2013, he served as chairman of the editorial boards for and the IDA Journal of Desalination Water Reuse. He has also served on the editorial boards of numerous other desalination publications and was a contributing editor to the Encyclopedia of Desalination and Water Resources.

IDA’s de facto historian,. Birkett began his career at the international consulting firm Arthur D. Little Inc. (ADL) in Cambridge, Mass., and for 26 years, worked with ADL’s foreign and domestic, industrial and government clients. In 1988, he left ADL to establish his own firm, West Neck Strategies, in Nobleboro, Maine. He continues to consult, lecture and publish widely in his fields of interest. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College, where he earned his B.A., and Yale University, from which he received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physical chemistry.